This paper surveys the foreign exchange markets, money and secondary government security markets, and stock exchanges in 107 smaller economy countries. The underdevelopment of these markets impedes risk transfer, monetary policy, corporate financing, and the capacity to absorb capital inflows....

Evaluating more than 317,000 discount certificates in the German secondary market, we find that premiums and spreads are endogenous and negatively related but depend on different key determinants. The fundamental determinants of the premiums are mainly profit-related, that is, dividends of the...

We empirically investigate the costs of trading equity at the Oslo Stock Exchange in the period 1980--2008. We show the time series evolution of different measures of (implicit) trading costs: bid/ask spreads, the Roll(1984) measure and the Lesmond et al (1999) measure. We find a clear time...

This paper is the first to analyze the joint determinants of premiums and spreads in structured financial products, while also focusing on issuers' hedging costs. We evaluate more than 396,000 single stock discount certificates on an intraday basis in the German secondary market. We find that...

This paper is the first to analyze the joint determinants of premiums and spreads in structured financial products, while also focusing on issuers' hedging costs. We evaluate more than 396,000 single stock discount certificates on an intraday basis in the German secondary market. We find that...

The actions proposed here focus on trade integration, substantially increasing exports of the poorest countries and helping them to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As the foundation for these ambitions, we emphasize the role of a secure, open global trading environment—strengthened...